By FRANCIS FEDOR
The Bulls went into enemy territory on Saturday, Oct. 25, to play the Memphis Tigers and lost a heart-breaker, 34-31. The loss dropped USF from the AP Top 25 and allowed Memphis to move into the 25 slot. The Bulls fell to 6-2 overall on the season and 3-1 in The American Conference play. Navy (5-0) leads the conference with Tulane (3-0) in second place. North Texas, Temple, Memphis and USF are tied for third at 3-1 in the battle for the conference title. Navy and Tulane are just outside of the AP Top 25, but USF has had the tougher schedule, playing a number of ranked opponents early in the season.
USF played a tight game in Memphis, where both teams started hot early; the Bulls got out to an early 14-7 lead, and the Bulls took a 24-14 lead to the locker room for halftime. With the Bulls up 24-17 early in the third quarter, it looked like the Tigers were going to kick a chip shot field goal to close to within a TD, but the Memphis kicker pushed the kick wide left. On the next play from scrimmage, Byrum Brown handed off to Sam Franklin, and Franklin took the ball 73 yards down the sideline (a season long), outrunning a Tiger defender, to pay-dirt to push the lead to 31-17. The Bulls had a great
opportunity to add to that lead with the ball inside the 10-yardline and, on fourth and four, elected to go for a first down or TD, passing up a relatively sure FG from Nico Gramatica. QB Brown found himself under heavy pressure and tried to get the ball to a receiver short of the line to gain, but the ball went through the receivers hands and turned the ball over to the Tigers.
The usually reliable USF defense struggled to contain the Tiger offense in the second half and saw their streak of creating a turnover stopped at 15 games. Memphis took the ball downfield late in the fourth quarter and found the end-zone, added a two-point conversion to take the 3-point lead, leaving 1:07 on the clock for a hurry-up offensive drive to put the Bulls in a position to send the game into overtime. Brown drove the offense to the Memphis 24 with little time left on the clock to setup the game-tying opportunity. A decision was made to take a shot on a TD with Brown, who finished with 390 total yards rolling out, but a holding call pushed the placement of the ball 10 yards back, extending the FG attempt to 52 yards vs what would have been a 41-yard kick for Gramatica before the penalty.
USF will have a week off before returning to Raymond James Stadium for a match-up against the University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA) on Thursday, Nov. 4, at 7:30 p.m. The Bulls will look to take advantage of a 3-4 Roadrunners squad to return to the win column. Four games remain in the regular season, and they play a tough Navy team on the road on Nov. 16; that could be a crucial conference game.